Liquid chemical fertilizers are widely used in modern agriculture. The pH values of these fertilizers are important in terms of their effectiveness in the field application and their effect on the soil-water pH balance. Therefore, it is necessary to measure the pH and other properties of liquid fertilizers with fast, practical and inexpensive methods. With the advancing technology, pH value has been started to measure more accurately and efficiently with the help of low-cost devices. In this study, a low-cost pH meter was developed using a low-cost pH sensor, an Arduino UNO R3 microcontroller board, and a software written in the C/C++ programming language. The developed pH meter was used to measure the pH values of liquid chemical fertilizers. Close variations were observed between the values obtained from it and the values measured by an accredited, laboratory-type pH meter. According to the pH measurements of the two pH meters, R2 ranged 88.1% to 99.3%, average error range 0.14 to 0.28, and average error percentage ranged 1.56% to 6.81% for three different types of liquid fertilizers. In light of these results, it was shown that the developed low-cost pH meter can be useful for practical pH measurement applications.

Organic matter (OM) content of the soils should be improved for sustainable productions. Municipal solid waste compost (MSWC) is an organic material used in several countries to improve soil OM contents. This study was conducted to determine potential use of MSWC as soil amendment. Field experiments were conducted for two years with single MSWC treatments. Experiments were conducted on 18 plots in randomized complete blocks design with 3 replications. Six different MSWC doses (0, 40, 80, 120, 160 and 200 t ha-1) were applied to experimental plots. Compost doses were calculated in dry weight basis, applied to 21 m2 plots and sunflower was sown as the experimental plant of the study. Following the sunflower harvest, disturbed and undisturbed soil samples were taken from the experimental plots and soil samples were subjected to various analyses. Applied MSWC doses significantly increased soil OM contents, electrical conductivity (EC) and cation exchange capacity (CEC), aggregate stability (AS) and saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) and reduced soil bulk density (BD). Effects of MSWC on soil pH were not found to be significant. Effects of MSWC treatments were more remarkable with increasing doses. MSWC treatments increased soil OM contents about 3 folds and increased CEC by about 25%. MSWC treatments significantly increased salt contents of the soils. Such increases were found to be significant at 1% level in the first year and 5% level in the second year. Increasing OM contents also increase soil aggregation, thus reduced bulk density and increased hydraulic conductivity. Correlation analysis revealed significant correlations between OM and AS. Present findings revealed that MSWC positively influenced physical and chemical characteristics of clay-loam soils of arid and arid climates, but salt contents should carefully be monitored in repetitive uses.

Knowledge of root architecture is significant since it influences on pathways from, photosynthesis products, water and nutrient movement. This study purposed to elucidate root mass, root length, root/shoot ratio, root/total mass ratio and above-ground characteristics in Vicia pannonica Crantz., Carthamus tinctorius L. and Pisum sativum ssp. arvense L. with taproot and Triticum aestivum L., Hordeum vulgare L. conv. distichon, X Triticosecale Wittmack, Avena sativa L. and Secale cereale L. with fibrous roots at 200 cm long tubes under field-grown condition. Crop harvesting is based on early and late growth stages of cereal crops. The results indicated that winter field crops had a wide range of differences with regard to root and above-ground traits at both growth stages. The root traits of field crop species varied considerably from 0.3 to 5.9 g and 2.4 to 11.9 g for root mass and 84.7 to 127.7 cm and 84.5 to 166 cm for root length at early and late growth stages respectively, while shoot mass was between 0.3–5.7 g and 5.5–29.8 g. Furthermore, the percentage distribution of root mass accumulated in 0-20 cm root length at early and late growth stages, ranged between 52.3 to 81.4 % and 27.7 to 75.2 %, respectively. The findings showed that crops with taproot had less root and shoot mass and shorter root length than cereals with fibrous roots at both growth stages. This study also significantly advances our understanding of root-shoot competition by comparing the agronomical traits of winter field crops with tap and fibrous roots at different growth stages.

Bu çalışma, Konya Ovası Projesi (KOP) Bölgesi’nin 2009-2018 yılları arasındaki tarım alet ve makina varlığı ile tarımsal mekanizasyon özelliklerindeki değişimin saptanması amacıyla ele alınmıştır. Çalışmanın materyalini KOP Bölgesi’ndeki illerin 2009-2018 yılları arasındaki tarım alet ve makinaları istatistiksel verileri oluşturmuştur. 2009-2018 yıllarına ait traktör sayısı, traktör güç dağılımı ve tarım alanı değerlerinden yararlanılarak tarımsal mekanizasyon özellikleri ile bu özellikler arası ilişkiler belirlenmiş ve karşılaştırmalar yapılmıştır. Karşılaştırmalarda; ortalama traktör gücü (kW), birim alana düşen traktör gücü (kW/ha), 1000 hektar tarım alanına düşen traktör sayısı (adet/1000 ha) ve bir traktöre düşen tarım alanı (ha/traktör) kriterleri esas alınmıştır. Elde edilen sonuçlara göre, KOP Bölgesi’nin 2009 ve 2018 yılları verileri sırasıyla, ortalama traktör gücü 38,21 kW ve 38,91 kW, birim alana düşen traktör gücü 1,21 kW/ha ve 1,56 kW/ha, 1000 hektar alana düşen traktör sayısı 31,75 adet/1000 ha ve 40,09 adet/1000 ha ve bir traktöre düşen tarım alanı 31,50 ha/traktör ve 24,94 ha/traktör olarak belirlenmiştir.

Essential oil composition, antimicrobial activity and flavonoid contents of leaf-fruits of Cedrus libani and Pinus nigra subsp. pallasiana were determined with GC-MS, disc diffusion method and HPLC in three different period. When the essential oil composition of leaf and fruits of P. nigra ssp pallasiana collected in April, July and September, major components were α-pinene, β-pinene, limonene, β-caryophyllene ve germacrene-D. On the other hand, additionally to these contents, myrcene and α–terpineol were also detected in C. libani. According to HPLC analysis, rutin, quercetin, kaempferol, naringin and resveratrol flavonoids were detected in different proportions. While rutin (154.33 µg g-) and resveratrol (20.02 µg g-) has the highest ratio in C. libani, quercetin (9.65 µg g-) and naringin (9.31 µg g-) were detected in P. nigra subsp. pallasiana along with rutin (39.66 µg g-). According to the antimicrobial activity results the essential oils of C. libani obtained in April has produced higher activity than that of July and September. On the contrary, the essential oils from P. nigra subsp. pallasina have produced the best antimicrobial activity on September compared to April and July. As a result, C. libani and P. nigra subsp. pallasiana essential oils have a composition showing antimicrobial activity and their harvesting season should be determined for the best and effective content.

Geographical indications and designation of origins is an industrial property right describing a product originated from any region or attributable to any region due to its quality, reputation or other characteristics. Particularly, the geographical indications (GI) provide information about the raw material or final products’ geographical roots to consumers and characterize the degree of its quality. Two types of GI were defined: Protected Designations of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). On the other hand, the products that cannot be registered as a designation of origin or geographical indication could be registered as Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) products specialty guaranteed if it can be proven that the product is on the traditional market for at least 30 years. The main goal of this research is to examine Turkey’s current status about labelled geographic agricultural material with a comparative statistic overview.

In this study, it was aimed to determine the concentrations of some elements in sediment along depht profile in core collected at the Lake Hazar (Elazıg) and to compared the results according to recent geological periods. For this purpose, the levels of arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), molybdenum (Mo), barium (Ba), uranium (U), tin (Sn), titanium (Ti), lanthanum (La) and beryllium (Be) on every 5 cm of the piston core samples taken as part of a TUBİTAK project (No: 111Y045) from Lake Hazar were detected. The lowest concentrations of Ba, Hg, La, Ti and U were found (111 ppm, 0.01 ppm, 4.4 ppm, 1190 ppm and 0.6 ppm respectively) at 81-83 cm in depth. It was determined that it belonged to 10 000 B.P. and to Holocene Period (10.5 thousand B.P.). The highest concentrations of As, Ba, Hg, Sn, La, Mo, Ti and U were found different depth in the core in Lake Hazar. The highest concentrations of Hg in the core were detected between 4-6 cm that this depth was determined corresponds to present day. The highest levels of As and Ba found that it belonged to Pre-Glacial Period/ Late Pleistocene Period (10.5 thousand B.P.). The highest concentration of other elements (Sn, La, Mo and Ti) determined that it belonged to Last Glacial Maximum Period/Late Pleistocene Period (between 23-16 thousand B.P.). The geological structure of the basin where the lake ecosystem is located, biological and hydrological processes, climatic and anthropogenic factors can be cited as the reasons for these differences.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of exogenous Melatonin (100, 300 and 500 µM) and L-tryptophan (125, 250, 375 ppm) applications on some growth parameters of lettuce plants grown under salt stress. The study was carried out under semi-controlled greenhouse conditions in spring (March/April) season. The exogenous applications to lettuce plants were carried out two times as foliar spraying. Salt stress was generated by adding NaCl (0 mM, 100 mM, 200 mM) to irrigation water. The complete randomized design was used with three replications in this experiment. At the end of the study, it was found that the highest doses of exogenous applications had the highest effect on the parameters of the number of leaves, salinity necrosis, fresh leaf weight, fresh root weight, and total surface area of lettuce plants under 200 mM salinity condition. When the effects of the subtract on these values were compared, the effect of melatonin was found to be more pronounced. Leaf width, leaf length, and leaf surface temperature values were not affected by the external application. These values only changed depending on salt concentration. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the application of 500 µM melatonin significantly increased salt tolerance in lettuce plants. However, in order to reach a more general conclusion, the dose ranges and genotype/variety numbers should be increased.

Sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) is highly valued fruit in the world and has wide production area in Turkey. Some of the species from the family Cicadellidae can cause direct damage by sucking the sap, and indirect damage by transmitting the phytoplasmas during their feeding process on the sweet cherry trees. This study was conducted to investigate the presence of the species of Cicadellidae family in Adana (Pozantı), Niğde (Darboğaz) and Kahramanmaraş (Andırın and Central Town), where sweet cherry cultivation is carried out, through 2014-2016. Surveying was done in two period a year, in spring (May-June) and fall (October-November) on the trees and weeds. As a result of sampling, 55 species from 35 genus in Cicadellidae were found. They are 32 species from Deltocephalinae subfamily, 18 species from Typhlocybinae, 4 species from Agallinae and 1 species from Megophthalminae subfamily were identified. Among them, Psammotettix striatus (Linnaeus) was the most common species with the 45.79% in total, followed by P. provincialis (Ribaut) with 15.26%. The other species were Empoasca sp. and Asymmetrasca decedens (Paoli) with 7.15% and 6.63%, respectively. It is known that the Phytoplasmas are phloem-limited agents, so, the cicadellid species that are feeding phloem tissue of the plant can acquire the pathogen and be able to transmit the phytoplasma potentially. As a result, it could be concluded that studies are needed to determine the potential to be vector of species of Deltocephalinae determined in sweet cherry orchards.

Weed-competitive cultivars are desired in the wake of growing popularity of organic farming, environmental pollution and evolution of herbicide resistance in weeds. This research work evaluated the weed competitive ability of three forage maize cultivars (ADA-523, AGA and SASA-5) against the noxious weed barnyardgrass (Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) P.Beauv.). The study was conducted in spring 2018 and repeated in summer 2018. Results of this study showed that maize-barnyardgrass competition significantly decreased the growth of forage maize plants. For instance, barnyardgrass decreased the maize plant height by 11.9-16.9%, leaf length by 13.3-20.2%, leaf width by 20.2-27.4%, and number of leaves by 14.3-25.0%. Fresh and dry weights of maize plants were also significantly decreased as a result of weed-crop competition. Barnyardgrass decreased the shoot fresh weight (30.7-60.6%), shoot dry weight (33.3-52.2%), leaf fresh weight (33.4-56.5%) and leaf dry weight (31.9-50.0%) of the maize plants. An interactive effect of weed × maize cultivars was found non-significant. Forage maize cultivars also varied occasionally for their traits. Nevertheless, ADA-523 had a higher plant height, leaf length, leaf width, leaf fresh weight and leaf dry weight than the cultivars AGA and SASA-5. On the other hand, the cultivar SASA-5 had a higher shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight and root fresh weight than the other cultivars in the study. This research work concluded that the forage maize cultivars in the study did not vary for the weed-competitive ability. Further, barnyardgrass-maize competition could decrease the growth and development of the maize cultivars.